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Discover the Book June 20, 2011

God has mapped out in the Scriptures that the Holy Land is the stage upon which two crucial events take place. One was on a mountain, and one will be on a plain. The mountain is Mount Calvary. The plain is the Plain of Megiddo. Taken together these may be described as the two altars of sacrifice that dominate the history of the world.

What happens at Armageddon is the result of a world's headlong abandonment of God. On Mount Calvary God declared His gracious plan to redeem the world by the sacrifice of His Son; on the plains of Megiddo God's vengeance is poured out on the armies of the world in a sacrifice of doom.

Both are blood baths and each is the descent of God's holy wrath upon sin.

Calvary and Armageddon are brought about as God’s bitterest enemies work out, despite themselves, His perfect and sovereign will. Peter painted across both these sacrifices the words of Peter, "The Gentiles, and peoples of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done” (Acts 4:27-28).

From each proceeds a supper: Calvary begets a feast of remembrance for the people of God, and Armageddon becomes a feast of retribution for the scavenger birds of the earth.

At Calvary there rang up to the gates of heaven the triumphant and victorious cry from the Lamb slain for the sins of the world, “It is finished!”

Then to Armageddon there crashes down to earth a thunderous answering cry from the temple in Heaven, “It is done!”

God violently shakes the earth each time. In Matthew 27-28 there are earthquakes surrounding Calvary at the Cross-and at Christ's Resurrection. In Revelation 16:18 Armageddon prompts the greatest earthquake of all time, destroying the realms of mankind.

Both events are an attack and conquest of Satan’s domain. Christ's death opened the graves of saints, and God raised many from death (as a show of Satan’s powerlessness) and in Revelation 16 the bowls are poured on the present headquarters of Satan who is the “Prince of the power of the Air”.

Please copy and paste this URL into your browser bar to see What Seems to Happen at Armageddon: http://www.dtbm.org/sermon/armageddon/